Day 11: Happiness is a choice

Happiness is not a goal to reach or a result to achieve.  It is not found in a shopping trip, a holiday, a lotto win or in another person.  It is a choice right here right now that you make.  Happiness is a practice!  

So often we are fixated on "becoming" happy.  It can be exhausting overthinking how we "could" or "should" be happy.  Is it a skill we need to acquire?  But perhaps the struggles so many of us have with being happy are associated with a picture we have developed in our minds of what happiness looks like, or what our lives should be like.  Perhaps happiness is accepting that everything is exactly as it needs to be. 

Right here, right now I celebrate everything that my life is.  I celebrate health ailments I have been suffering as they are showing me how empowered I am to help myself and make the best choices for me.  I celebrate my family exactly as they are; they teach me everyday different ways of thinking about things and how to live uninhibited.  I now celebrate the depths of depression; it is a place I wish no-one ever to visit but from these experiences I have really been challenged with trying to control the mind and choices.  You can be no-where but in the present in that moment.  Each choice I make I am happy with even if at the time it doesn't feel that way.  

Not every day feels like we are surrounded by roses and sunshine, but we can focus on what we do have control over (our mind and our choices).  That leaves us free from the exhaustion of examining the nitty gritty of the event, worrying about possible outcomes and comparing ourselves to what the rat race is doing.

Questions to ponder:
* Look around you right now.  Can you sit in the moment and just be?  (No judgement, no thoughts of how you would like it different).  
* Can you surprise someone with a gift or act of kindness today?  
* What do you have to be grateful for?  
* Can you take some time outside in stillness for 20 minutes today?